Is there a Witch in Witch-hazel?
Posted in Around the Garden, What's Beautiful Now on February 15th, 2012 by Joyce Newman – 1 CommentJoyce H. Newman is the editor of Consumer Reports’ GreenerChoices.org, and has been a Docent with The New York Botanical Garden for the past six years.
In the midst of winter’s blustery winds and wicked temperatures, it’s a great relief to see the warm yellow flowers of witch-hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia) brightening up the Garden path behind the Home Gardening Center.
This fragrant hybrid shrub is a relative of the North American native H. virginiana, or common witch-hazel, a plant that is certainly a little magical to some. Lore suggests the common name refers to the forked twigs that were sometimes used in earlier times for “water-witching,” or dowsing to locate underground water. These native plants bloom in the fall rather than the winter, but are just as impressive.
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